This article looks at the order-fulfillment problems faced by a fictitious e-commerce company: PinkAndBlue, Inc. Ravindra Okade shows how BizTalk Server 2004 is used to provide an elegant solution within a small budget and a very short implementation time. The proposed solution has all the required ingredients: scalability, failover support, message tracking, flexible transport protocols, and business rules support.

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The Company

PinkAndBlue, Inc. is a baby clothing retailer that operates 80
brick-and-mortar stores all over the United States. Two years ago, it launched
its e-commerce website, which now contributes about 10 percent of its total
revenue. PinkAndBlue now focuses on growing the web business to contribute 30
percent of its total revenue by the end of 2006.

NOTE

PinkAndBlue is a very fictitious company. If you're looking for
highly discounted baby clothing, you need to look elsewhere.

PinkAndBlue's e-commerce orders are shipped from three warehouses in
Tennessee, California, and Pennsylvania. Orders are routed to the nearest
warehouse. The fulfillment process is described in detail in the next
section.